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Of Politics, Sports and Sex

OK, so there won't be a LOT on here about sex, but tell the truth, that's most of the reason you entered this site, right? So, I'll slip some things in from time to time just to keep you coming...back.

I have written anything about sex on here for awhile, but haven't had any complaints. I guess that either means no one is reading, or readers would just as soon not hear any more of my opinions on the topic.

Assuming it's the former, and ignoring the latter, even if it is true, here is my random sex thought for the week, cuz you know, I only think about sex once every week or two.

One of my favorite quotations is from William Somerset Maugham, who said "There is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror."

That is something that has stayed with me for a long while, and has made me wonder why we are, as a society, so prudish/intolerant, hmm...there's a better word, ah yes - repressed! - of or about people who like weird stuff sexually and makes me wonder if it's possible that everyone...EVERY single person...has something, some sexual turn-on that runs outside the norm, or at least the norm as it's been defined in our current way of thinking: Puritan stuff, missionary position and nothing more type stuff.

It could be some little thing that is a turn-on, or it could be something really bizarre. I still remember reading about stuff in my Abnormal Psych class that I don't even want to repeat here, that is not worse than pedophelia, since after all, nothing is in my book, but seems far more out there.

All that said, I remember seeing a link on some website I went to one time about people who consider themselves a-sexual. I looked into it a little and found that there are people who really do think of themselves that way. In some ways, I envy them - I'm sure they are a far more productive member of society than the rest of us! But for the most part, I pity them. Can you imagine - yuk!

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Today's conclusion and over-simplification: Those on the Right think Government is the problem. Those of us primarily to the Left think the corporations who are most responsible for who gets elected and make the laws that primarily benefit those same corporations are the bigger problem.

And to further the point, it's my sense that there are some who like to just rail at the government without looking a little deeper as to why our politicians continually disappoint us, and I don't mean in the David Vitter/John Ensign/Anthony ...Weiner sense. I mean the laws, whether it be in terms of Obamacare, the weak finance reform bills, the weakening of the environmental laws, the strengthening of Big Oil and Wall Street and the banking industry, can all be linked back to who put the people in office who approved those sorry bills - the corporations. And as you can guess, it's my sense that it's primarily republicans and those who vote for them that enable such governmental disasters. It consistently feels like it's corporations first, people second, all based on the fallacy that we need to prop up the super rich who control those corporation so they'll create jobs...which worked far better when Clinton was in office than when Bush and his team were abusing the country so consistently.

Charlie's comment below reminds me that I should post here what I had also put on Facebook a few weeks back.

My prediction for who gets the most votes for the R nomination is thus:

1 - Huntsman
2 - Ross Perot...I mean Ron Paul
3 - Romney

And I only score it that way because it's just too easy to pick Romney. If I had to bet my house, I'd go Romney, but where's the fun in that? I think the single biggest deciding factor in who R's will vote for will be to choose the person they think has the best chance of beating Obama.

After all, it worked for us D's when we took Kerry over our preferred ideological choice - Howard Dean - in 2004, right?

Monday, June 20, 2011

So we're eating an awesome Father's Day dinner last night when Trev asked me to tell a dumb joke, because it's Father's Day and everyone has to laugh at my jokes, and when I can't think of one, Trev tells this one:

A sandwich walks into a bar and sits down and as the bartender walks by, he orders a beer but the bartender ignores him. Figuring he was hard of hearing, the next time the bartender walks by he said it a little louder, but again he was ignored.

This went on a number of times, when finally, the sandwich reached across the bar and grabbed the bartender by the collar and said, Why won't you get me a beer?! to which the bartender said "Sorry, we don't serve food here".

(Actually, when Trev told the joke, he gave the punchline as "We don't sell food here." :-( )

When it was clear that Emma didn't understand the joke, Cheryl started to explain it to her by telling her how there was a time when black people didn't get served at some restaurants, at which point a look of recognition quickly came over Emma's face and she interrupted Cheryl's explanation to say "Ohhhh, and it was burnt?!"

Seems to me that if one really believes in reincarnation, one should have no problem killing every annoying bug or hunting every available animal. In fact, we should be doing it as a favor to them, to get them to their next elevated incarnation more quickly.

I often think of things that I think are perfect for this blog, but quickly forget them, lost forever. The only way I can remember them for later is to come up with nmeonic-type trcks, depending on what nmemonic means, not to mention how to spell it. The way I remembered the 3 posts above this one is by repeating to myself from sometime yesterday until now: Burnt awkward bugs. And then I decided I needed to say it twice to remember to write this post.

One of my favorite gifts on Father's Day yesterday to go with a coupon from Emma for a back rub (offer expires 8/8/2011!), a coupon for two tickets to a Phillies game from Ammar (quickly followed by Emma whispering in my ear "Take me! Take me!") and 4 pair of work gloves (my only requested gift) and really cool hand made cards from Trev and Emma, was a phone call from Ev. She even called twice since we didn't answer the first time. Funny how such a little thing can mean so much.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

One of my stereotypes of Republicans, and I am a believer that there is a lot of truth in stereotypes, is that they like to think of things in terms of black and white/with us or against us/good vs evil. And further that the reason for this is a less advanced process of thought where everything is simplified and the answers are more easily explained and attained. Things all sort of fit into a neat package and there is always some omniscient interpreter, such as Rush Limbaugh or Fox News who are there to explain how and where everything neatly fits. That is why so many R's are more likely than progressives to be of the evangelical strain where the Bible, and God, have all the answers, not just for life on earth, but potentially more perplexingly, what happens after we die.

And they are in opposition to us hand-wringing, discerning and threshing, left-wing-types who are always trying to see every possible permutation of a problem, every corner of grey, taking care not to step on anyone's toes or hurt their feelings or making anyone feel emotionally or economically less healthy.

And all this is leading up to one paradox, which is to wonder why we progressives are more willing to let government have more of a say in our lives, giving us the answers, providing for us economically and to some affiliated extent, emotionally as well.

So to totally oversimplify, for those on the right, they think God has all the answers and for those of us on the left, we think government will provide for us.

And in the end, I think both are wrong - we the people can, should and generally do provide for ourselves...and most important, for each other.

Monday, June 6, 2011

I used to hear stories about people dying of lung cancer who couldn't give up smoking, and I thought it pretty stupid. That was until recently when I happened to walk past a mirror while I was eating a cupcake.

Jamie McVickar needs to do a better job checking some facts before he displays abject ignorance presented recently in these pages. He also needs a lesson in the rights of creditors as they related to the so-called bailouts of GM and Chrysler.Obama thwarted long established bankruptcy proceedings and gave his union buddies favored treatment over more deserving creditors. His statement that GM and Chrysler repaid their taxpayer funded loans is wrong. They merely took taxpayer money out of other government grants and applied them to loan payments. Result: We taxpayers are still owed the money.His "clear majority of Americans" that approve of Obama's performance is also wrong, and the only reason Obama enjoys his current favorability is attributable to his being dragged kicking and screaming into finding Osama bin Laden, thanks to the Bush interrogation policies Obama so violently opposed.Last week we witnessed Obama's duplicity when he urged Netanyahu to negotiate with a terrorist just after Obama ordered the killing of another one, quite probably in violation of U.S. law. Even Saddam Hussein had his day in court.

Mr. McVickar tells us more untruths about the Paul Ryan budget plan that he claims will add to the national debt. This has as much credibility as the Democrats ad showing "grandma" being pushed off a cliff. After all, it is Obamacare that steals Medicare funds.Let's face some unpleasant facts: Obama's "hope and change" has turned out to be a magnified version of the worst of Bush policies, not the least of which are uncontrolled spending and yet another involvement in a Mideast war. To claim that Obama policies work is insanity.

Paul Linsen
Chadds Ford

Here is what I am saying in return, in a letter, hopefully to be submitted by someone else:

Hidden among the usual personal attacks in the recent letter by Paul Linsen, there are very few facts, as he himself proves. He says there is no clear majority of Americans who support President Obama and then goes on to say why there is a clear majority who support him. He takes Jamie McVickar’s point that Chrysler has paid back all the government loans, which is true, and lumps them in with GM, who, despite a miraculous turn-around, now finally posting billion dollar profits, has not yet paid back all the loans, although they are ahead of schedule. Obama helped the workers in the government loans, because his focus is on creating and saving jobs, something the Republicans, despite their successes last November, have yet to propose a single bill to address. Every credible, objective analysis of Paul Ryan’s budget shows that while he tried to get people all excited about gutting Medicare, the bill in the end does more economic harm than good. At least Linsen got one thing right in his letter when he became one of the first right-wingers to acknowledge that it was President Bush’s policies that put us in this whole mess that President Obama has done such an incredible job turning around.

In further evidence of the great job Obama is doing is an article in the New York Times, and echoed in Forbes magazine over the weekend pointing out that “federal taxes are at their lowest level in more than 60 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that federal taxes would consume just 14.8 percent of G.D.P. this year. The last year in which revenues were lower was 1950 according to the Office of Management and Budget.” The current tax rates, cut by Obama as part of the stimulus package and again at the end of 2010 for the current year, are lower than under the Republican deity, President Reagan. The article goes on to point out that the United States has the lowest corporate tax burden of any of the nations who are a part of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, including every European country, as well as Japan, South Korea and many others. Oh, and who wrote the column in the New York Times, pointing out that tax rates under President Obama are lower than those of Reagan’s? Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy advisor to President Ronald Reagan and a top treasury official in the George H.W. Bush administration. The answer to our annual debt has never been more obvious. It is time to increase the tax rate for the wealthiest Americans back to where they were the last time our budget ran a surplus, which was during the Bill Clinton administration.

I tried to post this in response to the two great comments by Charlie and Anonymous to my Letter to the Editor post, but it wouldn't accept me commenting on my own post for some reason, so I'll do it here:

Great points by both of you, and Charlie, as you suggest, the R's are missing a great opportunity in 2012. They could nominate a pragmatist - someone who speaks to the middle, acknowledges past successes and failures, without regard to party, and similarly, can make proposals, involving tax increases and obvious areas for spending cuts and I think he or she could win. But the R's are so impacted by the far right, it's hard to see an electable candidate emerging. I don't think the tea party is as strong as the press and the Rs in general think they are and if someone would stand up to them, it would help them as a candidate in the short and long run. The one guy I think may be able to do it is John Huntsman.

About Me

I live with my awesome family of 5 or 6 or maybe 8 depending on your definitions regarding an engaged step-daughter, an exchange student, and dogs, cats and stuff, in West Vincent in the house my dad built back in the 50's. I graduated from Westtown School and Earlham College, with a degree in Psychology, which helps explain why I'm an Accountant today. I've been a Quaker since I was 2 months old and a Phillies fan since I was 7. Being a Quaker has served me far better.
I hope you enjoy this blog. Let's try to keep it vitriol free.